Limitless || Mark Lee

Chapter 22

"So I heard you got hurt last night?"

Mirae stopped wrapping her hands and met Taeyong's eyes, a slight nervousness in her gaze.

"Yeah... my ankle." She pointed down at her ankle, which was still tightly wrapped from last night. His eyes lingered on her injured ankle for a moment before he lifted his gaze.

"Hmm yeah, Mark told me he found you after you tripped down the stairs last night."

"Oh, yeah! Yeah. I was just going to get something and tripped. Clumsy me." She laughed out nervously but Taeyong decided to let it go.

"We'll take it easy until you're better. Since you can walk, we'll focus on upper body attacks only for today."

"Sounds good"

- - -

"Good job today, Mirae." Taeyong smiled at the small girl as she wiped the sweat from her forehead. Her arms were weak after the hours of training, but she returned his smile and enthusiastically high-fived him. "How's your ankle? Do you feel up for a quick spar?"

She carefully rolled her ankle, feeling minimal pain before nodding at Taeyong. He smiled at her, cracking his knuckles and stepping up to face her.

"We'll take it easy. Tell me if it hurts."

She nodded again, taking her stance as she faced the older boy. He smirked at her before mirroring her stance. The two circled one another, tension high as they waited to see who would make the first move.

Letting out a sigh, Taeyong lunged first. She tried to slide to the side but was too slow and the two of them toppled to the ground. She was able to wiggle out from underneath the older boy before he could pin her, springing to her feet and attacking again.

This time Taeyong was able to slide away and the two began to circle again. Mirae took the opportunity to attack first, raising her arms to strike. The two of them went back and fourth, battling for victory, though Mirae knew that Taeyong wasn't hitting as hard as he could.

She was giving her best effort, but all the training from the day was weakening her hits. Her muscles were sore and her ankle was throbbing from the movement. She knew it was only a matter of time before she lost.

They continued exchanging hits back and fourth when a thought popped into her head. As Taeyong raised his arms to block her, she raised her elbow.

She slammed her elbow into the boy, which he blocked easily, already having anticipated her movements. However, he was caught off guard as she spun on her good leg, kicking out hard against his stomach.

His eyes widened as he tumbled onto the ground. Mirae quickly limped over to him and pinned him down, a triumphant smile on her face.

They two sat there panting for a moment as she rolled off of him, both trying to catch their breaths as Taeyong sat up. He was stunned. Completely shocked and caught off guard by the move.

"Wow."

Both their eyes snapped towards the doorway where some of their gang members were gathered. Jaehyun and Johnny stared at Mirae with proud gazes. Xiaojun and Lucas were smiling at her, the taller flashing a thumbs up in her direction. Dream was there too, staring at her with dropped jaws at what they had just witnessed.

"Since when did you know how to do that, Mirae? That was great! You're more talented than we thought!" Jaehyun exclaimed, walking over to the mat and pulling her to her feet as Johnny did the same for Taeyong. She felt pain shoot through her ankle but covered it with a smile.

"Taeyong's training you well, huh. You even surprised him." Johnny said, high fiving the small girl. From over Johnny's shoulder, she could see Mark staring at her with the smallest shadow of a smirk on his face.